John (on the right) has his brother's face, distorted by greed and treachery. Both men, history tells us, were caricatures of kings. Richard "spoke very little English and spent very little time in England (he lived in his Duchy of Aquitaine, in the southwest of France), preferring to use his kingdom as a source of revenue to support his armies"
John, on the other hand, "acquired two epithets. One was "Lackland" , because, as his father's youngest son, he did not inherit land out of his family's holdings, and because as King he lost significant territory to France. The other was "Softsword" signifying his supposed lack of prowess in battle
Apart from entering popular legend as the enemy of Robin Hood, he is perhaps best-known for having acquiesced – to the barons of English nobility – to seal Magna Carta, a document which limited kingly power in England and which is popularly thought as an early step in the evolution of limited government."
Source for quotes: Wikipaedia.
Artist: Andrew Finnie. For my work please visit my blog. Thanks for looking and please click for big.
3 comments:
very interesting, milord
As I am not a caricaturist I have hard time to grasp this week's MAD topic, so I really liked your approach, the caricature of...
Two kings - among the few ones Shakespeare didn't write a play about (OK, I am exaggerating here, but they would probably have been - would be - great material for drama.)
Ah, and the illustration.
Absolutely fascinating and catching of course - as usual. The spiderweb (?) makes me think though...
Hya Kinga and Lu
Thanks for commenting.
Spiderwebs?
For me they mean death and decay and disuse. For this illustration it signifies that even those who welded so much power so badly are now insignificant...
I suppose we are all in the same way, eventually? Maybe not. Hope not!
cheers again
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